Charts du Jour, 17 March 2015: Pump Baby Pump (but Don’t Drill)

I regularly report on the Energy Information Administration‘s monthly US oil production statistics, which show no slowdown in output as yet (see here for latest numbers). Bloomberg, however, has a series of multimedia offerings giving more colour as to what is going on.

And for a great animated graphic showing rig count through time and space, this offering (again from Bloomberg) is superb. Below is my screen shot, but to get the full effect click this link here.

Finally, an animation explaining why the crashing rig count has yet to stop production rising. In Bloomberg‘s view, the divergence between rig count and production has many months to run.

National Geographic recently had an article titled “How Long Can the US Oil Boom Last?” which emphasises the longer view. They argue that the US fracking boom is a multi-year phenomenon not a multi-decade one.

But in the long term, the U.S. oil boom faces an even more serious constraint: Though daily production now rivals Saudi Arabia’s, it’s coming from underground reserves that are a small fraction of the ones in the Middle East.

Both the EIA and the International Energy Agency see US oil production peaking out by the end of the decade regardless of short-term oil price fluctuations. Nonetheless, both organisations have underestimated the upswing in tight oil production to date. Overall, it is very difficult to gauge where US production will be in five years time. This is a bigger story than the current spectacular rig count crash, and one I intend to return to in future posts.